Jesus then came into Galilee announcing the good news from God. All the preliminaries have been taken care of, and the rule of God is now accessible to everyone. Review your plans for living and base your life on this remarkable new opportunity. Dallas Willard's paraphrase of Mark 1:15.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

How I Got Here - Community

The first article I want to mention comes from Vineyard's church planting magazine, Cutting Edge. It was the Fall 2001 issue, and the article that got my attention was on a church called Vineyard Central (located just outside Cincinnati). I unfortunately couldn't find a link to this article, so I'll just share why it impacted me.

Vineyard Central was a pretty typical church plant, when one day, a year or so in to the plant, they received word that the building they were meeting in for their worship gatherings was being condemned, and they had 48 hours to get out. Plan B was meeting in homes. It was something that God had begun laying on their hearts previously, but they didn't think it would happen like that.

I was impacted by the community I saw in the pages I read. It was true "life together", and it was something that I had never experienced before. Yet God, through this article, began placing within me a deep desire to "be church" rather than to "go to church." That fire has never died, and almost eight years later, I feel that some of this dream is being realized.